It is well-known that when doctors have better information, they deliver better care to patients. Often times, having the capability to closely monitor patient conditions after treatment or after a procedure is as important as the treatment/procedure itself. Also, there is a need in the art to synergize the information being provided to a patient with the feedback provided to the care giver (e.g., doctor, nurse, etc.). Patients may not be clear regarding instructions, and may often be imprecise and/or inaccurate at recognizing and reporting symptoms. This in turn affects all areas of healthcare, from diagnosis to treatment, to compliance, to assessment of effectiveness.
One particular area of concern involves post-procedure monitoring, such as post-surgical discharge. In such circumstances, it is important for caregivers to be able to identify complications after discharge; in a recent study published in Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 34,000 surgical patients were tracked to determine how complications affected caregiver costs and mortality rates. When no complications were present, the average cost of treatment per patient was estimated at $16,000 with a 0.6% mortality rate. However, when complications were present, the average cost rose to $56,000 average cost 12.3% mortality rate. As many of the complications are preventable, it is paramount that caregivers provide easily understandable information to patients which may be used to provide feedback to the caregiver(s) for processing. By utilizing intelligent information feedback systems, many complications may be caught early, resulting in significant cost savings and decreased mortality.
Information about a patient's well being, pain level, medication compliance, physical and emotional symptoms are important in every stage of healthcare from wellness to diagnosis to assessment of treatment effectiveness to care management, and eventually to end-of-life care. Despite the arrival of numerous internet-connected health care monitoring devices, the most important information about the patient can only be gathered from the patient themselves. Most, if not all, of these new technology solutions collect only objective biometric patient data.
The manner in which feedback is collected from patients is often inefficient, and, often times, ineffective. Typically, the feedback is solicited from static surveys that are often generic, but may be customized for particular maladies. Such approaches have been found to be less than effective for (a) presenting the correct keywords, (b) in an effective arrangement and (c) in an effective sequence for getting the most accurate and relevant information from a patient. Effectively capturing, organizing and sharing Patient Reported Information (PRI) is important for providing actionable and timely data analysis, combined with long-term, outcome-based studies. To be useful to both endeavors, PRI should be relevant, organized, accurate, contextual, and timely.